It’s a camera, a camera that takes photo’s.
An Introduction to capture light
(because that’s what photographers do)
Talking about gear can be an interesting subjet. For me personal, the summary is that gear doesn’t make you a good photographer. Yes, it can improve your image quality when you have higher end (more expensive) gear in some situations, but the picture itself will be miserable without any capabilities to control your camera and frame the picture.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, a French photographer, once said that ‘the first 10.000 photographs are your worst’.
To start photographing nowadays is an easy task. You don’t need any sophisticated camera gear to succeed in this quest. Nowadays, we have almost unlimited possibilities to capture and create videos and photographs with our cell phones.
And that’s an excellent starting point to get yourself familiar with creating a real life picture. Explore, improve and let people comment on your pictures. Learn by doing. Or try to buy a second hand camera. It doesn’t make sense to buy expensive gear when you start: first control the camera and improve yourself. Take a coure on Youtube or at a local photographer. You need to create your own style of shooting. It’s just better to go outside and wander around.
I mainly made my pictures with an Nikon D7200. Bought it with some basic lenses and improved from time to time. Needed a faster lens for sport and wildlife and wanted to use an wide angle lens for astrophotography.
The list
I upgraded to an full frame mirrorless camera (Nikon Z6 II) for a few reasons:
- Improved quality image quality in the dark (a plus for astrophotography)
- Better with higher ISO (see the point above)
- Larger buffer frame, handy for wildlife.
In the end, I wanted a setup that is lightweight for travels and can deliver great picture quality.
The gear list, anno November 2020 is:
- Nikon Z6 II
- Nikkor Z 24-200MM
- Tamron 70-200 G2/2.8
- Tamron 24-70 G2/2.8
- Sigma 105 Macro F/2.8
- Tokina 11-17MM 2.4 wide angle lens. (not full frame)
For the rest, I love the F-stop bags. Also the Benro filter set is good for your value.
Gone but not forgotten
I currently own a Polaroid and a Mimiya C220 with an 80MM f/3.7 lens. Using an older camera makes you rethink your composition about a thousand times, because there isn’t an option to preview your photo.
